Analysts at Bitmex Research raised alarms about early Bitcoin holders, particularly scams that targeted scams that had wallets dating back to 2011.
According to the company, the fraud appears to take advantage of long-term addresses by injecting misleading messages through the OP_Return output, an optional field for Bitcoin transactions that can carry false data.
In one documented case, the scammers targeted the famous “1Feex” wallet. It holds around 80,000 BTC, believed to have been stolen from Mount Gox. The attacker created a message linking the victim to a fraudulent website that is pretending to be the abandoned Wall Street company Salomon Brothers.
The fake site will present legal notices claiming that the wallet is “lost or abandoned.” You will then invite the expected owner to prove their claims by signing an on-chain message using a private key or by sending personal documents via a web contact form. If there is no response by October 5th, the notice will deem the wallet a legally abandoned.
Fake legal claims
Bitmex warned that the website does not provide a reliable link to the real Salomon Brothers or their previous leadership. The site displays a list of real individuals who once worked for the company, but it does not appear to be associated with this new and likely fraudulent entity.
The platform described this approach as reminiscent of previous scams involving controversial figures like Calvin Ayre, who previously funded legal action that includes the same Bitcoin address.
According to a Bitmex survey,
“The link between this company and this website is fake. There is an “advisory committee” page that includes real people who worked for the Salomon Brothers in the 1980s, but it appears that these people don’t have a link to this new fake. ”
Also, community members note that legitimate wallet owners can simply move small amounts of BTC to prove their activity rather than transferring the perfect balance.
This has led many to suspect that the campaign is part of a broader social engineering fraud effort designed to gather sensitive information under legal pretexts.
Bitmex must not allow users to interact with contact forms or provide personal information.
The emergence of these scams indicates the growing complexity of crypto-related scams. In the first half of 2025 alone, hackers stole over $2.1 billion in 75 separate cases, an increase of 10% compared to the same period in 2024.